Groundwater

Groundwater is a frontier-building board game about founding a desperate settlement in the untamed wilderness and keeping it alive long enough to prosper. Think westward expansion circa 1880.

Players establish wells, plant and harvest crops, fish rivers, distill spirits, construct industries, issue debts, and slowly transform a fragile outpost into a thriving township. Every building placed expands the settlement itself, physically growing the town across the map as new opportunities — and new problems — emerge.

Resources are scarce, seasons are unforgiving, and survival often depends on difficult economic choices. Before formal banking exists, players rely on handwritten debts and family-backed IOUs to finance expansion, creating a rough frontier economy where reputation can matter as much as wealth.

With a modular landscape, evolving infrastructure, and interconnected production systems, Groundwater blends settlement growth, economic development, and territorial planning into a living frontier simulation centered around one essential resource: Water.

—descri[tion from the designer